


Three's a Crowd

by learningprocesses (physically_affectionate)



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Humanity Switch, two carolines
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 01:30:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1038729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/physically_affectionate/pseuds/learningprocesses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a ghost Kol shoves The Cure down Caroline’s throat to get back at his brother Klaus, he does it at a bad time. With the Veil lowered and Caroline’s want to remain a vampire, her vampire self doesn’t pass to the Other Side, giving a human Caroline a shadow vampire!self that only she can see. And if being followed around by her vampire!self isn’t bad enough, she’s also somehow magically pregnant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Being choked, as a vampire is a particularly disorientating concept, Caroline feels. It isn’t life threatening, in the conventional sense; rather, it can be acutely painful, but a vampire’s lower need for oxygen means that it doesn’t kill them. This concept has stipulations though - humans with their feeble strength can barely force the battering of an eyelid, but vampires with their razor-sharp fingernails can draw blood. An original vampire, even in the form of a ghost, can make it very, very painful.  
  
Kol must have been working out on the other side, because even as a ghost-vampire, his fingers around Caroline’s neck are making it troublesome to breathe, and his fingernails drawing blood. It doesn’t help that with Kol’s other hand, he’s shoving a rough skinned crystal cylinder into Caroline’s mouth. (She wishes he would just snap her neck already.)  
  
“Klaus will get what he deserves.”  
  
Caroline isn’t quite sure as to why shoving the cure down _her_ throat is a punishment against _Klaus_ , but as she coughs and gags and feels her jaw rearranged until her teeth are crushing crystal, she doesn’t have time to tell Kol just how much he’s underestimating the relationship between herself and his brother.  
There’s a sweet liquid coating her throat as well as crystal shards, and there’s no time to try and throw it back up, because she can feel it in her stomach, like a burning acid.  
  
Now she is a heap on the floor, throat and body free from the hands of the Original, and she’s pissed. She isn’t an object to be used against another person (unless it is a part of a revenge plan she has formulated herself) and she isn’t a chess piece in somebody else’s game, but most importantly, she isn’t ready to be human again. She had only just finished her summer wardrobe and she’ll be damned if she has a human growth sprout and they don’t fit.


	2. Part 1

Consciousness comes back in one hit, at the same time that Caroline’s limbs feel as if they’re being electrocuted. There’s no residual pain though, only the threat of an oncoming headache, and as she opens her eyes, everything is blurry. Limbs hurt and when she tries to sit up, her movements drag in time.

It takes a few seconds to focus on the environment around her. The décor isn’t familiar; there are too many dark reds dressing mahogany furniture for any of her friends’ houses, and a distinct lack of any modern appliances. She’s lying on a velvet loveseat, and when her elbows are stable under her, they’re still shaking.

Caroline doesn’t remember touching or consuming any vervain, there isn’t a stake hanging out of her body, and her neck doesn’t feel like it does after being broken. But even then, after vervain, everything is still crispy and sharp to the eye, and limbs aren’t sore – sore isn’t really a concept for a vampire.

Being human sucks, and Caroline groans. “Ugh.”

“Everything alright love?”

Even human, the voice is immediately recognisable.

“Klaus?” Caroline asks, her voice groggy.

Moving across the room quicker than Caroline’s eyes can track, Klaus appears beside her, hand against the small of her back as her elbows start to give away. His hand is cold against her back, but she’s thankful it’s there; she didn’t really want to fall back and hit her head on the wooden frame, because now that she’s human, a shock like that could actually kill her.

“Thanks,” Caroline says, swinging herself around so that she’s leaning against the seat; she doesn’t want Klaus’ help for something as basic as sitting; she’s still angry about the whole Tyler thing, but she hasn’t forgotten her manners.

“Are you okay?” Klaus asks, with his tone at an uncharacteristically soft level, as if he’s tired of being angry. Later, when she finds the daggered body of Kol (which is beside the point because he’s a ghost) she realises that he is probably all angered out.

Swinging her arms out, Caroline feels the crack of stretching limbs; something she hasn’t felt in a long time, and it is actually something she does not want. “This is a disaster. I can die of anything now; I probably won’t even make it to graduation.”

Klaus starts moving again too fast, dragging a chair across from Caroline, while trying not to – what Caroline assumes is – laugh. She’s halfway between staring him down and trying to watch his every move, and he’s just trying to smoulder his laughs into the back of his hand.

“Slow down! You’re moving too fast!” Caroline barks at him, watching as he obliges and slows down his movements. “I’m – I’m human now. You have to move at human speed.”

“Sure thing love. You’re just-”

“No, stop Klaus. I’m not interested. I have to get home and away from you because I’m a human now and you’re not fooling either of us if you think you’re not going to try and drain me of blood if I stay here. I’ll have to get mum to change the ownership of the house, because there are way too many vampires who have been invited into the house and I can’t protect her anymore, and I’m actually going to have to study now. And I could die of a cold.”

Caroline is aware of Klaus’ track records with humans. She knows that to him they are only walking blood bags. She knows what Klaus made Stefan do in the not so recent past, his blatant ignorance of the fact that humans are people too, how he pulls them apart piece by piece for fun. If he is so easy with daggering his own siblings on a whim, she doesn’t want to think about the extent of Klaus’ feelings towards humans.

She is also acutely aware that he wants her, and now that she’s human, she has no way to stop him; she can’t run or hide, she isn’t strong enough, she won’t revive, she doesn’t have a stake.

But in reality, Klaus is only the beginning of her problems.

Caroline starts planning aloud; there’s so much to do now that she’s human, and she needs to find her phone to start listing, but her whole thought process is paused when Klaus places a finger against her lips.

She didn’t react to it fast enough though, it seems, because she’s still talking and her lips are still moving, meaning that for a few seconds (two and a half words) her lips are dragging along Klaus’ finger.

Her whole body freezes; it has to be the start of her end. There’s nothing to stop him now.

Is it worth fighting?

She decides that it’s not; fighting means he’ll drag it out, so the only other choice is an eerie version of acceptance.

“Love,” he starts, eyes focused on where they’re touching, voice dragging in a way that Caroline knows won’t be negotiable. “You will not leave the house while the veil is still lifted in the Expression Triangle. Although, I will not harm you, and if you so wish, you may lock yourself in one of the rooms.”

As Caroline raises her eyes to look at Klaus, she sees that it’s not a joke. His face is all soft curves where there are usually rigid lines. Maybe she will survive this day. “What if I don’t want to?”

“It’s for your own safety.” Caroline ignores the undertone of “I will make you” running in his voice.

“If you haven’t noticed, I’m old enough that I can make my own decisions about my own safety.”

“Yes love, but you’re not as old as me, now are you?”

This shuts the argument down, and Caroline decides it’s probably going to be easier to just go along with it. Bonnie was planning to close the expression triangle soon – no later than the next night – and surely Klaus’ affections for a vampire Caroline would still carry over long enough that she would be safe. But then after that, she couldn’t be sure. When would he realise that she’s food, not a friend?

Klaus seems to notice Caroline’s distrust, as he doesn’t move to help her when she stands, letting her wobble on her human legs. He makes a point of walking in front of Caroline as they slowly make their way down to the bedrooms, fully exposing his back to her in – what Caroline hopes is – a sign. She’s not sure what the sign is telling her, but she is really hoping that it’s something good.

The corridor is cold as they walk. Although Klaus is in front of her, she feels as if somebody is walking beside her. There isn’t anybody though; just cold air.

But then she turns her head slightly, looking as to where she can feel something, and she sees herself. More accurately, a version of herself. A newborn vampire with a craving for blood – a red face and drawn teeth – and growling, in only a set of matching undergarments. Her human eyes aren’t quick enough though, because just as it appears, the sight is gone.

The corridor walls are covered in paintings, and the one she is standing beside is of a landscape (not a person), and there isn’t a mirror to be seen. As she quickly turns to take a sweeping look at the hall, she doesn’t see Klaus’ questioning expression, and she doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Brushing it off as a part of her human brain settling back into being human, she comes to a stop behind Klaus. He gestures to a closed door, and Caroline opens it. Behind the door is a room, decorated in the same style as the previous room, with the exception of locks lining the inside of the door. The bed looks comfortable and stable enough to endure a small breakdown over becoming human, something that Caroline knows is coming soon, and the walls look thick enough that when Klaus decides that she’s only a meal, he won’t be able to get in.

Half closing the door behind her, Caroline is surprised to see that Klaus isn’t following her at all. “Well, this will be sufficient. But I’ll need my phone, Klaus.”

Caroline knows that he has her phone; there are two phone ends hanging out of his front pocket.

“No, love. You can have it back once the triangle is closed.” Klaus’ voice seems like there is no room for discussion.

“Yes, Klaus,” Caroline insists, as she tries to reach for the phone, hands getting nowhere close enough, as his speed moves him away.

“A human is in no position to argue with an Original,” Klaus continues.

Head tilted in a non-impressed way, Caroline looks at Klaus. Eventually, he gives in, handing the phone over.

Tapping at the screen, Caroline is about to thank Klaus, surprised at how easily he succumbed to her demand, when she realises that the battery is dead.

Storming past Klaus and walking towards – what she thinks is – the front door, Caroline is not in the mood for any games, vampire or human.

Klaus seems to follow her in an amused fashion, and Caroline almost thinks she’s going to be able to walk out the front door. She’s in the sitting room leading to the door when he stops her. “What are you doing, love?”

“Going to the kitchen to get some blood bags,” she spits out sarcastically. “What does it look like? I’m going home. I’m tired and hungry with a dead phone and a human life. I need food and a charger, both of which are at my house.”

Klaus doesn’t even say anything, barely tilting his head in a disapproving way. But Caroline is determined, so she keeps on her warpath to the door –

But her body is crashed into and then lifted by something, and everything is moving around her at an alarming pace for two seconds, before Klaus places her onto the bed in the room he had assigned to her.

“You are not leaving,” he states in a calm voice. “You seem to have forgotten that while this door may have locks on the inside, it also does on the outside.”

Slapping her hand against the bed in anger, Caroline shouts as he closes the door on her. “Bring me a charger then!”

Falling back onto the bed, she begins to sulk to no audience. Even though she knows the chances of Klaus brining her a charger are low, because he’s under the impression that it’s for her safety, she can still hope.

*

Half an hour later, the door to Caroline’s room open and closes in a matter of seconds, and on the dresser towards the bathroom, Caroline can see a charger, and a burger and chips sitting there.

*

Waking up as a human is quite different to waking up as a vampire. The senses are slow and flawed. The body is still groggy and it takes a few minutes to catch up to speed to her thoughts.

It doesn’t take very long for Caroline to notice the scantly clad version of herself lying across on the bed, no matter how slow her eyes track now.

“Of course, _you_ can see me,” the scantly clad version of Caroline drawls, rolling her eyes. “The weak, breakable, good for nothing human.”


End file.
